Lora Maslenitsyna
Title:
Graduate School Student
Email:
Lora Maslenitsyna is a PhD candidate in the combined program for Film and Media Studies and Slavic and Eurasian Literatures and Cultures. She focuses on interpreting artificial intelligence and algorithmic media through humanistic and critical inquiry. She is broadly interested in nonfiction film and media, postcolonial theory, socialist and postsocialist literature and cinema, and historical identity and memory. Her peer-reviewed research has been published in Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema and she has contributed to the edited volume, The New Russian Documentary: Reclaiming Reality in the Age of Authoritarianism. She has curated a film series at Yale titled “World Documentaries Today” and has written for publications including Public Books, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Words Without Borders, and Full Stop.
Research Interests:
Nonfiction film and media poetics, socialist and postsocialist literature and cinema (especially Russophone and Eastern European), historical identity and memory, literary theory
Education:
M.A. Comparative Literature, University College London (2019)
B.A. Liberal Arts, Concentration in Humanities, Soka University of America (2018)
Conference Presentations:
“The Fragile Promise of Making Oneself Heard: Cultural Paradigms of Queer
Russophone Nonfiction Cinema from 2013-2022,” Criminalized Again:
Culture(s) of LGBTQI+ in Search for Freedom, Harriman Institute at
Columbia University (2024)
“‘The house of a thousand windows’: Postmemory, Experience, and the
Failure of Documentation,” American Association of Teachers of Slavic and
East European Languages (AATSEEL) Conference, Las Vegas, NV (2024)
“‘Mysterious Barren Lands’: The Panoramic Legacy of Arctic Documentary
Films,” International Panorama Council Conference, Iowa City, IA (2023)
Fellowships and Awards:
MacMillan Center Pre-Dissertation Research Grant (2024)
Publications
Peer-reviewed Articles
“Against Observation: The Panoramic Legacy of Sergei Loznitsa.” Studies in Russian and Soviet
Cinema 18, no. 3 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1080/17503132.2024.2392338.
Book Chapters
“National Subjectivity and the Commitment to Queer Visibility: Audible Discourses in Children
404.” The New Russian Documentary: Reclaiming Reality in the Age of Authoritarianism, edited by Anastasia Kostina and Masha Shpolberg, Edinburgh University Press, February 2025.
Reviews
Review of Soviet Self-Hatred: The Secret Identities of Postsocialism in Contemporary Russia, by Eliot Borenstein. Slavic and East European Journal 68, no. 2 (2024).
Review of Ivan’s Land, directed by Andrii Lysetskyi. KinoKultura no. 81 (2023).
Criticism
Review of Season of the Swamp, by Yuri Herrera. Full Stop, February 12, 2025,
yuri-herrera/.
“‘Only the Northern Lights’: The Russo-Ukrainian War and Its Poets.” Public Books, December
and-its-poets/.
“On Scammers and Being Scammed: The Tuner (2004).” Bright Wall/Dark Room, August 15,
“Dreams and Ashes: Baqytgul Sarmekova’s To Hell with Poets.” Words Without Borders, April
sarmekovas-to-hell-with-poets-lora-maslenitsyna/.
Review of My Work, by Olga Ravn. Full Stop, December 27, 2023. https://www.full-
stop.net/2023/12/27/reviews/loramaslenitsyna/my-work-olga-ravn/.
Review of The Caretaker, by Doon Arbus. Full Stop. November 22, 2023. https://www.full-
stop.net/2023/11/22/reviews/loramaslenitsyna/the-caretaker-doon-arbus/.
Review of Mild Vertigo, by Mieko Kanai. Full Stop. September 18, 2023. https://www.full-
stop.net/2023/09/18/reviews/loramaslenitsyna/mild-vertigo-mieko-kanai/.